FROM PAST PATHS TO FUTURE WALKS

Reading and Learning From the Traditional Streets of Kathmandu Valley Towns

Sudarshan Raj Tiwari

Nepal

Concept of City

http://www.urbagram.net/images/concentric-chicago.gif

Egyptian ideographic symbol for the word ‘town’

Traditional settlements of Kathmandu valley

Traversed by pathways, embellished with crossings and ringed by boundary markers - physically, literally and ritually.

History of Development of Urban Patterns in Kathmandu Valley

•Kirat Period (Before 300 AD)•Lichhavi Period (Around 400 AD -900 AD) •Malla Period (1201 AD –1769 AD)

Urban Pattern

• Ritual mediation of public spaces • ‘Pringga’ – Small and Dense Settlement• Street that linked the in-town sanctum

• Before Lichhavi??? • Kathmandu – a Ceremonial Arena

Urban Pattern

•LICCHAVI: • Hindu Planning templates: • PRASTARA, Mangriha• DANDAKA, Kathmandu• KARMUKA, Deupatan

• Formality and order of geometry on the ritual mediated order.• Stone Water spouts at cross roads

Lichchhavi town of Maneswor and the Surviving Street Segments and Cultural Markers

Urban Pattern LICCHAVI

Urban Pattern

•MALLA• Diversity of clan, class and caste• intricate web in the town • boundary edges met in the public spaces of the streets and the

squares. • Increasing density were sought to be managed by• Gathering spaces• Institutions• Streets• Squares

Urban Pattern

•MALLA•Newars??•Era of Urban agriculture along with • Religion • Arts• Crafts• Commerce

•Competative Stance in Arts, Crafts and Celebrations after independent small kingdoms

Squares in 3 Periods- KIRATTunaldevi Dyochhe Chowk•Use of spaces or elements- Dyochhe, Jadhu, crossings, pati in everyday life•Expression of symbolism and meanings; cognitions and recognitions; knowledge and experiences of RITUALS

•DABALI, SATTAL and PATI•Kirat Andipringga now transformed into a perimeter street of the Lichchhavi Maneswora

Squares in 3 Periods- LICCHAVI

Maneswora

•Narayan Images and templese on stone Plinth•Chaityas and Shivalingas •Complexity of Religious Faiths

Squares in 3 Periods- MALLA

Order of Spaces• 1st Order• Durbar Square –Public structures: dabali, mandap, sattals, and

temples ,Hiti • Around the Palace

• 2nd Order• Market squares or urban plazas• Intersection of neighbourhood streets and hight streets• Temples, Hiti, dabali and Pati• Multi-cultural

(Drawing adapted from Raghuvamsi, 1998)

Nugah - A Second Order Market Square in Patan.

Order of Spaces

• 3rd Order• Street intersection inside a neighborhood• Temple- Ganesh• Pati• Size varies according to the traditional trade of Caste• Mono cultural or intermix of related cultures

• 4th Order• End of a pathway• Extended Family•Well and miniature temple•Mono-Cultural

Urban spaces of Malla

(Map adapted from Theophile & GutschowPATAN.

Patan Durba Square

Chyasa Square

Nugah

Subaha

SUBAHA

(Drawing adapted from Raghuvamsi, 1998)

Streets

•Kirat used geometric pattern earlier to Lichhavi ??

• Ceremonial Streets- wide enough to carry small khat and pedestrians.• Widening at Cross-Roads ( Bamboo

Support of Khat??)

http://static1.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/a_scale_large/600-9/photos/1302032264-hindus-celebrate-khat-jatra-and-try-to-break-the-temple-gates_649759.jpg

LICHHAVI STREETS

•LICHHAVI TO MALLGeometric Pattern Based Planning

TO

Informal Organic Network Guided By Topography And The Urban Ground With Power Places, Dyochhe, Temples And Other Markers Organizing Principle Of The Cosmic Imaging And The Newer Mandala At A Philosophical Level.

STREETS

• Streets continued to serve the movements of the divine, the living and the dead. • Route of the dead and the route of the divine should not intersect,

and the funerary paths linked each and every house to its designated funerary ghat, a very complex pattern of back lanes became laid out.• Overlapping layers of ritual mediations in the streets added charm

and variety in the experience of moving of the living. • All the three movements i.e. of the DIVINE, THE LIVING AND THE

DEAD, ---- Definition, Delineation And Detailing of the Malla street and pathways.

• System of voluntary set back - increasing social interculturation• SPACES from narrowing and widening of the arteries (lachhi) and

interspersed with platforms (dabali) and resting pavilions (pati), numinous stones, shrines, chaitya and temples also offer restorative potions of sun and shadows, calm and breeze, sights and sounds, neutral 'voids' and spirited spots and etc. apparently catering physiological, psychological and spiritual recuperation and rest. • Every streets have stories to tell• They create, nourish and continue thick urbanism.

Changes and Challenges from Contemporary life

• Heterogeneity, diversity and density have intensified over the decades in Kathmandu valley towns. • Old spaces are reduced or misused• Breaking down of traditional organization and structure of the society• Cultural symbols and values have lost their essence• For quite a few users, the surviving environmental characteristics comes

as a boon in an otherwise ‘space-less’ city. • Migration of multi-culture : limited ability of the migrants to integrate

with the local population well.

SOCIALWORLDMEDIA

Changes and Challenges from Contemporary life

GORKHA EARTHQUAKE- APRIL 25

How are the original society, the new society and the public space coping with each other?

THANK YOU